I must say I have been enjoying this discussion very much and all the "new faces."

This is a little niggling thing. Did anyone notice that 99% of the time Carryl was mentioned she was Carryl Cope? Evening when it was faculty cocktail time she was often referred to as Carryl Cope and not just plain Carryl. For some reason I found this really annoying.

I'm really enjoying everyone's take on the book. Thank you to those of you who are in the academic field and can share some of your experiences!

I think what I loved so much about this book is that it was wildly different from my college experience. When I started my freshman year our university had 52,000 students so my classes were usually in large auditoriums, you never got to really know any students or teachers and you did get the feeling that you were your social security number! I really liked reading about these close relationships that were talked about in The Small Room. Of course being too close has its drawbacks too.

One thing that first struck me was when Lucy talks about her interview and she was flat out asked if she was planning to marry any time soon. Can you imagine anyone asking that now? Can you imagine anyone asking a man that?

Danielle -- yes, I regularly have plagiarizers, unfortunately. As many of the classes I teach are writing classes, I think it's part of my job to teach them how and why to avoid it. Sometimes they don't know the rules about paraphrasing and citing. Sometimes, though, it's clear it's just plain cheating. In that case, I fail the student. I hate dealing with it -- it's ugly all around.

Stefanie -- yes, I noticed that, although I didn't find it annoying. Some people I just think of by their two names, or in some cases by their last name. Perhaps Sarton did it because Carryl Cope is such a dominating figure? People take her so, so seriously?

Iliana -- well, I can imagine someone now asking a job candidate about marriage plans, but I'm sure it happens much less often than it used to, and people have more legal options than they used to. And most definitely it would happen to a woman -- people assume, even today, probably, that a man will simply bring his wife and family along.